The obsessed and the subjugated.

— Much has been said of the dangers of Spiritism. Nevertheless, it is to be noted that those who have cried out the most are precisely those who know it only by name. We have already refuted the principal arguments brought against it, in such a manner that we shall not return to them; we shall only add that, if we wished to proscribe from society everything that may offer danger and give occasion for abuse, we would not know for certain what would remain, even in relation to things of prime necessity, beginning with fire, the cause of so many misfortunes; then the railroads, etc., etc. If we admit that the advantages compensate for the inconveniences, the same reasoning applies to everything else: thus experience indicates, insofar as we take certain precautions to remove ourselves from the dangers we cannot avoid. Indeed, Spiritism represents a real danger; by no means, however, the one that is supposed: one must be initiated into the principles of the science in order to understand it well. We do not address ourselves at all to those who are strangers to it, but to the adepts themselves, to those who practice it, since it is for them that the danger exists. It matters that they know it, in order to be on their guard: a danger foreseen, as is known, is a danger half-avoided. We shall say more: for whoever is instructed in the science, there is no danger; it exists only for those who think they know and know nothing, that is, for those who do not possess the necessary experience, as is wont to happen in all things. A very natural desire in all those who begin to occupy themselves with Spiritism is to be a medium, principally a medium of psychography. Without doubt it is the kind that offers the most attraction, by virtue of the facility of communications, and because it is the one that develops best through practice. One understands the satisfaction that must be experienced by one who, for the first time, sees his own hand form letters, then words, then sentences that answer his thoughts. These answers, which he traces mechanically, without knowing what he does and which, most of the time, lie outside any personal idea, can leave him no doubt as to the intervention of a hidden intelligence. Thus, great is his joy at being able to converse with the beings from beyond the tomb, with those mysterious and invisible beings who populate the spaces; his relatives and friends are no longer absent; if he does not see them with his eyes, they are nonetheless there; they converse with him, and he sees them in thought; he can know whether they are happy, what they do, what they desire, and exchange kind words with them; he understands that among them separation is not eternal and hastens, with his wishes, the moment when they will be able to reunite in a better world. That is not all: how much will he come to learn through the Spirits who communicate with him! Will they not lift the veil of all things? From then on, no more mysteries; he has only to question, in order to learn everything. Before him, he already sees Antiquity shake off the dust of the ages, turn over the ruins, interpret the symbolic writings, and bring back to life before his eyes the centuries that are gone. Another, more prosaic, and less concerned with sounding the infinite where his thought is lost, simply dreams of exploiting the Spirits in order to make a fortune. The Spirits, who must see everything and know everything, cannot refuse to make him discover some hidden treasure or something secret and marvelous.

— Whoever takes the trouble to study the Spiritist science will never let himself be seduced by these fine dreams; he knows what to think regarding the power of the Spirits, their nature, and the object of the relations that man may establish with them. Let us recall, first, in a few words, the principal points, which must never be lost from sight, because they are, as it were, the cornerstone of the edifice.

1st The Spirits are not equal in power, nor in knowledge, nor in wisdom. Being nothing more than the souls of men, freed from their corporeal envelope, they present an even greater variety than those found among men on Earth, since they proceed from all worlds and because, among the worlds, our planet is neither the most backward nor the most advanced. There are, then, very superior Spirits, and others quite inferior; very good and very wicked, very wise and very ignorant; there are the frivolous, the malevolent, the lying, the cunning, the hypocritical, the funny, the witty, the mocking, etc. 2nd We are incessantly surrounded by a multitude of Spirits who, being invisible to our material eyes, are nonetheless in space, around us, at our side, watching our actions, reading our thoughts, some to do us good, others to induce us to evil, according to whether they are good or wicked.

3rd Owing to the physical and moral inferiority of our globe in the hierarchy of the worlds, the inferior Spirits are here more numerous than the superior ones.

4th Among the Spirits who surround us, there are those who attach themselves to us, who act more particularly upon our thought, advise us, and whose impulse we follow without knowing it. Happy are we if we listen only to the voice of the good ones.

5th The inferior Spirits attach themselves only to those who listen to them, near whom they have access and to whom they cling. Should they succeed in establishing dominion over someone, they identify themselves with that person's own Spirit, fascinate him, obsess him, subjugate him, and lead him as though he were a true child.

6th Obsession never occurs except through inferior Spirits. The good Spirits cause no constraint; they advise, they combat the influence of the wicked ones and, if they are not heeded, they withdraw.

7th The degree of constraint and the nature of the effects it produces mark the difference between obsession, subjugation, and fascination.

Obsession is the almost permanent action of a foreign Spirit, which causes the victim to be induced, by an incessant need, to act in this or that direction, to do this or that thing.

Subjugation is a moral oppression that paralyzes the will of the one who suffers it, impelling him to the most senseless actions and, frequently, to those most contrary to his own interests.

Fascination is a kind of illusion, sometimes produced by the direct action of a foreign Spirit, sometimes by his captious reasonings, an illusion that alters the moral sense, falsifies the judgment, and makes one take evil for good.